Trafficking of Women in the Balkans: A Modern-Day Slavery

Over the past decade, “trafficking in persons” or “human trafficking” for commercial sexual exploitation has been one of the fastest growing areas of international organized criminal activity. In simplest terms, human trafficking is “a cruel, ruthless, and cynical form of human exploitation, a serious crime, and a gross violation of human dignity.”¹ In legal terms, it is “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve consent of a person having control over an-other person for the purpose of exploitation.”² Even though the terms “human trafficking” and “human smuggling” are at times used interchangeably, the critical factor that distinguishes trafficking from smuggling is the use of force, coercion and/or deception in order to exploit the victims. In other words, while human smuggling refers only to the illegal transport of a person across international borders for benefit or profit and does not necessarily entail exploitation, human trafficking entails sexual exploitation, forced labor, slavery, or practices similar to slavery.³

Each year, hundred thousands, even millions of persons are trafficked and used as commodities. According to the United States Department of State, 700,000 to 2 million people, of whom 35% are under the age of 18,⁴ are trafficked each year. According to the United Nations (UN) estimates of 2008, about 2.5 million people from 127 countries have been trafficked to 137 countries in that particular year for purposes such as forced labor, sexual exploitation, the removal of organs, and forced marriages.⁵ In addition, 2009 estimates of Amnesty International indicate that 4 million people are trafficked or smuggled across borders annually.⁶ In addition to international trafficking, internal trafficking—trafficking that does not cross national borders—claims an estimated additional four to twenty-seven million persons to that figures.⁷ These worrying numbers indeed reveal a human tragedy of massive proportions.

Due to this grim situation, human trafficking has gained a high level of public exposure and become a matter of great concern at multiple levels. Due to the breadth of the issue, however, this research will focus only on the problem of woman trafficking for purposes of sexual and commercial exploitation, which is vastly under-researched, under-funded, and naively equated with “prostitution.” Also, for the sake of clarity and simplicity, special focus will be given to the women trafficking in the Balkans, as the region is evolving into one of the busiest hubs for trafficking in drugs, weapons, and women, and heavily suffering from the humanitarian, social, political, economic, and costs of the issue.

The Balkans and the Balkan Trafficking Routes

The Balkan area consists of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, Serbia, Kosovo,⁸ Slovenia, and Turkish territory in Europe.  The geographical position of the Balkan countries brings considerable benefits to these countries, as they are situated at the crossroads of the European and Asian routes. Combined with serious problems of the region such as the lack of rule of law, chronic political instability, high unemployment rate, widespread corruption, and porous borders, this strategic geographical position brings tremendous benefits to the organized crime groups, as well. Numbers are supportive of this argument, as 200,000 of the estimated 1 million women forced into prostitution worldwide are trafficked into the whole of Europe through the Balkans.⁹ A similar study indicates that 32% of the trafficking victims detected in West and Central Europe originated from the Balkans between 2005 and 2006.¹⁰

Especially in the 1980s and 1990s, the trafficking of women became very attractive and lucrative due to fewer risks and expenses, bigger profits per woman, and shorter distances in the region. Accordingly, traffickers used both internal routes for the flow of women from rural to urban areas, and transnational routes for the flow of women from less developed countries in the Balkans to economically and socially well-off countries in Western Europe. It is noteworthy that uneven social, economic, and political development levels among countries and regions, as well as corrupt officials ensuring the local or transnational flow of trafficked women play a decisive role in the formation of these routes. In relation to that, these routes, as well as the origin, transit, and destination countries are subject to change over time. To illustrate a similar case, while Central European countries like Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Lithuania were mainly origin countries for trafficking of women to the Western countries at the beginning of the 1990s, they are important origin, transit and even destination countries today.¹¹

Still, however frequent the trafficking routes change depending on the law enforcement measures and the level of economic development, there are three main international trafficking routes in the Balkans. First one is for trafficking via Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and partially Slovenia to Italy or Austria; second one starts from Moldova, Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro and reaches to Albania, and across the Adriatic Sea into Italy; third one starts from Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania (through FYR Macedonia), and reaches to Greece.¹² The reasons why these routes and the region are attractive for traffickers, as well as for other organized crime groups that use the profits gained from women trafficking to finance other illicit activities will be touched upon in the following section.

Main Reasons Why the Balkans is Attractive for Women Traffickers

The reasons behind the high rate of trafficking in women can be grouped into seven categories: (1) high demand for women, (2) abusive international troops in the region, (3) Schengen Agreement and porous borders, (4) globalization and advances in communication technologies and transportation, (5) economic hardships and poverty, (6) cultural traits, and (7) profitability of the trafficking business.

1 – High Demand

Balkan countries are the main source to meet the demand for women in Western Europe. The reasons behind the high demand vary. To begin with, according to the classification of Hughes, the demand for women can be divided into three components. The first factor that increases demand is the men (and occasionally women) who seek out women for the purpose of purchasing sex acts. The second factor is the profiteers in the sex industries including the traffickers, pimps, brothel owners, and supporting corrupt officials who make money from sex trafficking and prostitution. The third factor is the culture that indirectly creates a demand for victims by normalizing prostitution.¹³ All three factors overlap in the Balkans; thus cause a high demand for women.

Reasons for high demand are not confined to these three factors, only. In addition to these, personal or national tendencies play a significant role in the flow of women from source to destination countries. To illustrate this point, there is a tendency for normalization and legitimization of sex trade as women are seen as “commodities” or “goods” to be sold in the region. In a similar vein, the tendency of Turkish men to prefer blonde prostitutes led to increasing prostitution by blonde women from Central and Eastern European countries starting from the 1990s.¹⁴ Aside from the tendencies, the demand has been on rise due to the expansion of sex industry worldwide over the last decade; regardless of their legality, today a wide range of sexual services including cheap street prostitution, clandestine brothels, night clubs, massage parlors, go-go bars, escort services, and internet services¹⁵ are very easy to use for male customers.

2 – Abusive International Troops

The presence of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and UN peacekeepers, expatriate community, and humanitarian relief workers in the region unexpectedly affected the supply of and demand for women. A considerable number of soldiers saw sex services during the conflict as harmless and entertaining, without taking into consideration that traffickers were gaining more profits through international “customers.”

Numerous reports from various institutions found widespread evidence of sexual abuse in many countries where peacekeepers were deployed. To illustrate the abuse, an International Organization for Migration (IOM) report maintains that “especially close to military bases the most frequent customers of trafficked victims have been foreigners and in particular NATO/Stabilization Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina (SFOR) members. For example near the ‘Eagle’ NATO Base [in Bosnia] there [were] dozen [sic] of night bars and the most frequent customers are SFOR members.¹⁶ Similarly in Kosovo, where the UN was responsible for sending 50,000 foreign troops, a dramatic increase in the rate of human trafficking was seen. Amnesty International suggests that while there had been just 18 documented cases of for­eign women being trafficked into Kosovo prior to the arrival of the Kosovo Force (KFOR) of NATO in 1999, there were 200 documented cases by 2003, after the introduction of KFOR.¹⁷ Some officials were even involved in trafficking, as proven in the case where UN police along with the local Kosovo Police Service arrested three UN police officers for human trafficking in Kosovo in 2005.¹⁸

3 – Schengen Agreement and Porous Borders

Most trendy trafficking routes include the countries with relatively easy visa regulations and loose border controls.¹⁹ Since the European Union’s (EU) Schengen Agreement eliminates all internal border controls between 26 European countries, women traffickers have long become able to buy, sell, resell, and transport women to the Western European destination countries with little difficulty. Furthermore, border controls in the Balkan countries are lax, just as the border and customs officials are susceptible to bribery and corruption. These factors give illicit networks a plenty of room for maneuver and make the region a hotbed for women trafficking.

4 – Globalization and Advances in Communication Technologies

Globalization and advances in communication technologies serve as a facilitator for trafficking activities in the region. Not only the mobility of people, but also the intensity of communication and interaction increased as a result of the boom in technological inventions. As Zelinka underlines, the invention of the Internet and different high-tech communication channels including classified mobile phones and text messaging, unlimited email access via sophisticated cell phones, secret blogs, classified websites, virtual forums constitute the most profitable 20th [and 21^st] century technological inventions for the traffickers operating in South-Eastern Europe.²⁰ In other words, developments in technology and transportation enabled traffickers to find more clients with less difficulty and move between borders more freely, as they enabled customers to find services more easily.

5 – Economic Hardships and Poverty

In the region, the economic inequalities have increased radically right after the rapid spread of free markets. In the Central and Eastern European countries, due to the transition to market economies, huge job losses were seen followed by an increase in poverty.²¹ Poverty and the accompanying lack of economic opportunities have played a significant role in the proliferation of women trafficking activities, as human trafficking is a symptom of poverty. Especially unemployment that skyrocketed after the collapse of the communist regime and low GDP per capita have been among the key reasons why Balkan public got involved in the trafficking to make money, either voluntarily or involuntarily.

6 – Cultural Traits

Especially in closed and conservative societies, culture can have an impact on demand for trafficked women, as sexuality is widely seen as a taboo. To be more specific, “it is a widely endorsed notion in those cultures that men’s sexual urges are part of the natural scheme of things, while women’s sexuality is an aberration, tainted with guilt and shame.”²² Accordingly, one of the reasons why the victims fall into the trap of traffickers can be the oppression of women within patriarchal family and social structures. In many places and cultures, it is by and large the case that ‘going to a prostitute’ is part of the rites of passage into manhood. It is also still common among adults away on business trips, working far from home or as a way of sealing a business deal.²³ All of the above cultural factors indeed stimulate demand for sexual services in both origin and destination countries.

7 – Profitability

Another reason behind the high rate of trafficking in women is stemming from the profitability of this business. A June 2010 report issued by the UN Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC) indicates that trafficking in persons is one of the most lucrative illicit businesses in Europe, generating €2.5 billion per year.²⁴ As the data suggests, trafficking business has never been more profitable; whereas old-world slaves could be purchased for a global weighted average of $12,000 or more in today’s dollars and generated roughly 15 percent to 20 percent in annual return on investment, today’s slaves sell for a global weighted average of $400 and can generate anywhere from 200 percent to 500 percent or more in annual return on investment.²⁵ The Balkans is not an exception in this regard, as in the region a young woman can be bought for between €500 and €5,000, and once she is forced into prostitution, she can earn her owner as much as €15,000 a month; then she can be resold and replaced by another victim.²⁶ Another aspect of this business is indeed regarding how women are recruited from their hometowns and brutally trafficked into sex industry, and it will be covered in the following section.

Recruitment of Women as Sex Workers

As mentioned before, women trafficking is a low-risk and highly profitable enterprise, and there are numerous ways to acquire sex slaves. Interestingly, the methods used to recruit sex workers about a century ago bear a strong resemblance to modern schemes. For instance in Russia, special recruiters used to go to the countryside to lure unsuspecting female peasants with the prospect of high-paying jobs in urban centers and subsequently force them into prostitution.²⁷ Speaking of today, Kara argues that acquisition primarily occurs in one of five ways: deceit (usually a false offer of employment, migration, or marriage), sale by family (whether out of economic desperation or greed), abduction, seduction or romance, and recruitment by former slaves.²⁸ Indeed, none of the recruiting ways is humane; most of the trafficked women are forced to have sex with many customers multiple times, beaten, raped, and abused. Naturally, this treatment places victims under severe stress and leads to trauma and depression. Also, the situation the victims are in highly increases the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases.²⁹

In the region, violence or sexual abuse in families, lack of job opportunities, low educational background, and traditional attitudes toward gender roles are among the main factors why women, specifically those are mainly from rural areas, become victims.³⁰

As their environment is wrought with challenges, women seek economic opportunities abroad via various sources including newspaper ads, marriage, and modeling agencies or the Internet to work as au pair, maids, dancers, hostesses, and factory workers. However, victims afterwards are often provided with false travel documents, and an organized network is used to transport them to the destination country, where they find themselves forced into sexual slavery and held in inhumane conditions.³¹ Traumatized victims themselves describe being locked in cages, chained to beds, starved, burned with cigarettes, gang raped until they are broken and forced to perform sex-on-demand.³² Since victims are generally left without any form of identification, put under the strict control, incurred high “traveling” debts, and threatened to death, they are given no chance but to cooperate with the traffickers.

Combating Efforts in the Region and the Way Forward

In order to address the grim picture above, both Balkan countries and a wide range of international organizations have made efforts in recent years. The efforts of the countries include, but not limited to, improving legislation, reforming law enforcement agencies, sharing information, gathering intelligence, and creating regional networks. Even though some countries, such as Albania, Serbia, and Kosovo, do not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, they are making significant efforts to do so. To illustrate this point, the government of Albania approved a new 2011-2013 national anti-trafficking strategy with input from civil society, and continued to organize information and education campaigns to prevent trafficking.³³ To further illustrate the improvement, while about 40% of the victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation in Italy were Albanians in the late 1990s, the rate dropped to 20% in 2000-2003 and 10% after 2003.³⁴

In a similar vein, Serbian government continued to forge partnerships with civil society to prevent trafficking and co-financed a Serbian film production dramatizing the actual experiences of Serbian trafficking victims aimed at awareness-raising among Serbian youth vulnerable to exploitation. Some other countries, such as Bosnia and Croatia, fully comply with the above-mentioned standards, despite imperfections such as present trafficking-related corruption that hampers governments’ ability to prosecute trafficking, and decreases in funding to care for victims.³⁵

In addition to individual country efforts, some countries individually support the combating efforts of the Balkan countries. For instance, the US and Swedish governments contributed over $33,000 to various programs aimed at prevention of human trafficking in 2004.³⁶ The US not only adopted its own zero-tolerance policies prohibiting its Department of Defense personnel from engaging in or facilitating human trafficking,³⁷ but also initiated Southeast European Cooperative Initiative (SECI) in 1996 to begin a coordinated combat on trafficking with the participation of Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, Turkey and (then) Yugoslavia.³⁸ Eventually, 237 were identified as victims of trafficking, 293 as traffickers, another 2,700 women and children were classified as voluntary migrants and arrested, deported, or prosecuted,³⁹ as the corrupt practices of Balkan police forces and their involvement in trafficking were revealed.

As mentioned before, a wide range of international organizations have also focused on human trafficking in the region and worked towards preventive measures. The ones that are highly active in the Balkans include the International Labor Organization (ILO), International Organization for Migration (IOM), Save the Children, End Child Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking (ECPAT), Anti-Slavery International,⁴⁰ the UN Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC), the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and La Strada.⁴¹ In addition, especially since 1990s, women trafficking has been on the radar screens of the Council of Europe (CoE), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, and the EU. Specifically EU efforts to combat women trafficking in the Balkans are promising. To illustrate, EU provides generous funds and support to projects designed to assist traumatized and sexually abused women and child victims of human trafficking; Anti Sex Trafficking Action (ASTRA), a Serbian NGO dedicated to eradication of all forms of trafficking in humans, successfully started the implementation of its new project entitled ‘Stop Trafficking of People!’ (STOP!) through EU funds.⁴²

In line with the current efforts, Balkan countries can take the following steps and implement policies accordingly for a more effective combat. To begin with, one of the main problems regarding the issue and combating efforts is highly related to the definition of the problem. The disagreements over whether it is a problem of migration, law enforcement, integration, human rights, or development⁴³ should be addressed and solved in order to be able to formulate better counter-trafficking policies targeting all levels starting from recruitment, or even from structural challenges. Therefore, as an initial step, states as well as agencies dealing with the issue in the region should be encouraged to use a common definition of trafficking in women in line with appropriate international legislation and agreements.

In addition to this, the region is still suffering from development problems. As previously mentioned, trafficking in women in the region is largely connected with the globalization processes and social and economic decline during the transitional period in the 1990s. One of the symptoms of women trafficking is indeed poverty and underdevelopment. It is, therefore, essential for countries as well as international community to address the root causes and allocate more resources to poverty reduction, job creation, and sustainable development projects in the region.

In a similar vein, as poverty and underdevelopment lead to widespread corruption in the region, it is of high importance to have stricter controls and increase the incomes of border police and judicial and prosecutorial authorities to reduce both the number of trafficked women and corrupt practices. The reforms in border control can be supported with the reforms in judiciary systems that are tailored to the needs and realities of the region, as well as EU laws and principles. Also, fast-track courts to prosecute trafficking crimes can be created and supported with international observers and judicial review to minimize corruption. In addition, specialized law enforcement units, departments, and agencies for fighting organized crime should be provided with enough human and material resources to allow them to perform optimally, and insulated from the political interference.⁴⁴

Aside from addressing the root causes and reforming border security and judiciary, the important role of the media and education in raising awareness should be better understood in the region. Media, therefore, should balance its terminology of trafficking in women, quit the rhetoric referring to victims as “prostitutes”, and underline the exploitation aspect of the trafficking problem. In addition, newspapers should not accept advertisements obviously dedicated to the recruitment of people⁴⁵ and avoid sensationalist approaches to the topic. In addition to already existing campaigns, more countries–regardless of being an origin, destination or transition country–should prioritize launching awareness-raising campaigns as a short-term policy. The key theme of the message can underline the human rights/humanitarian aspect of the problem and contribute to international actors’ endeavors to promote women’s rights and democratic values in the region.

Finally, the general practice of deporting the foreign victims can be abandoned. Victims of trafficking can be decriminalized and provided with legal assistance in a language they understand. Just as some nations like the US, Italy, and the United Kingdom have provisions for a grace period during which victims are allowed to stay in the country under specific conditions,⁴⁶ Balkan countries can have similar provisions for such a period to encourage victims to cooperate with the law enforcement. Also, a new legal mechanism to punish and deter the traffickers can be implemented. This mechanism should primarily prevent new traffickers from entering into pre-existing underground networks of trafficking (and sexual exploitation) and/or running their business independently, and creating their own network to exploit trafficked women. To prevent new traffickers and integrate the victims into the society, therefore, Balkan countries can aim and adopt EU standards in legislation, rehabilitation, reintegration, and re-socialization mechanisms.

Conclusion

Trafficking of women in the Balkans for sexual exploitation is not merely “prostitution.” It is a form of slavery and is among the fastest growing transnational crimes. It is a serious issue posing threats to many actors at multiple levels: at the individual level, it is a serious human security threat to women in terms of taking their basic rights and freedoms, as well as personal dignity away. It is a national security threat for countries in the region and posing serious economic and social threats that may hamper their political goals. It is a regional security problem and a threat for the EU, as well as non-Balkan countries on the routes in terms of creating a source of instability and feeding other organized criminal activities. Ultimately, it is a threat to global security due to the symbiotic relationship between women trafficking and other organized criminal activities causing countless number of deaths every year.

Indeed, it would be unrealistic to expect the total elimination of women trafficking in the Balkans, as the region is at the intersection point of many trafficking routes and a hub for organized crime activities. Still, reducing the number of victims, as well as the number of people on the demand and supply sides is possible and necessary. Accordingly, the combat against women trafficking should be at all levels and include clear, tangible, and achievable short-term, medium-term, and long-term objectives in order to shrink the volume of the industry fed by sex trafficking and sexual exploitation.

In the words of Gertrude Mongella, “women have always struggled with their men-folk for the abolition of slavery. […] It is now the turn of men to join women in their struggle for equality.”⁴⁷ Under the light of these words, taking these steps would indeed provide a basis for further improvement in the combat against trafficking. More importantly, it would facilitate the protection of victims’ rights for life and freedom from slavery, and have major impact on ending the modern-day slavery.